HAMMOND, La. – Following the 11th practice of fall camp, the Southeastern Louisiana football program hosted members of the Touchdown and S Clubs in a post-practice ceremony Saturday morning in the Victory Club.
Former players were invited to catch the current Lions in action, before enjoying food and drinks with head coach Frank Scelfo after the Southeastern workout.
“We were honored to be able to welcome our former Lions to today’s practice,” Scelfo said. “We want all our former players to know this will always be their program and events like today helps build that bridge. Our former players are excited to be a part of what we’re trying to day and their involvement is vital to the continued growth of our program.”
As part of Saturday’s reception, six former SLU coaches – Dan Chatwood, Oscar Lofton, Ken Magee, Bob Mahfouz, Tony Misita and Robert Youngblood – received “Lion for Life” plaques as recognition of their contributions to Southeastern Football.
Prior to the presentation of each plaque, former players of the coaches gave testimonials on how each coach influenced his players’ lives. The often emotional acknowledgements moved everyone in attendance, including the Lions’ second-year head coach.
“As a coach, you have the privilege to be able to influence so many young lives,” Scelfo commented. “When we honored these six great former coaches today, it shows how that influence lasts a lifetime. My only hope is that one day I can say I had just a fraction of the impact today’s honorees did.”
For the second straight Saturday, Southeastern brought officials to the practice field. Scelfo was overall pleased with Saturday’s practice.
“We hit on some big plays and took pretty good care of the ball,” Scelfo said. “We competed hard and we were really pleased with the effort. But we had too many pre-snap penalties. We also had made a couple of penalties after the play. We’re going to be an aggressive football team, but we’re going to do so between the whistles. We have to clean those things up moving forward.”
The current Southeastern football team will return to the practice field on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. The Lions open up the 2019 season versus No. 6 Jacksonville State on Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. in Strawberry Stadium.
